Friday, June 15, 2012

George Felt Bequeaths his Descendants Not Land, but a Better Life in the New World

George Felt 1609-1693
George Felt appeared before the City Council of Malden, Massachusetts again to ask for financial help.  It was terribly demeaning for him to have to ask for help, especially after he had been so wealthy years before.  But he and his wife were old and feeble.  And they had lost everything.  Now they were grateful to get any help from any source. 
George Felt (or Felch as he wrote it sometimes) had been born in Bedfordshire, England, probably in a little area called Leighton around 1609.  He came to America around 1629 to Charlestown, right when Charlestown was incorporated into a city.  Every settler was given a two-acre plot of land, and George was no different.  He settled into his plot, which was just south of ‘Mill hill’ and butted on the south by the Charles river.  He built a house and planted a garden, and looked for someone with which to share his life.  George married Elizabeth Wilkinson in 1630, perhaps in the newly organized First Church of Charleston.  Elizabeth had just arrived from Bedfordshire herself.  They began welcoming children into their family.
George worked as a Mason, but knew that he’d be wise to invest in land.  Charlestown city encompassed a large territory then, including what is now Woburn, Burlington, Stoneham, Malden, Somerville and parts of Reading, Medford, Cambridge and Arlington.  George set out to acquire land in Charleston.  By 1638, he owned parcels in Everett, Malden and Woburn.  A few years later (1640), George bought 300 acres at Broad Cove in Casco Bay, Maine. 
George and Elizabeth moved to their land in Maine in 1643, after George repurchased the land upon hearing that the title to it was weak.  Starting over in the wilderness was hard work, and the Indians were a constant threat to their safety.  George built a stone house there and the family struggled to survive.  His efforts to pioneer the area established the community of North Yarmouth, prompting one to write, “The advent of George Felt in Broad Cove may be said to be the birthday of North Yarmouth.”  After a few years, they moved back to their land in Malden, just as Malden was being incorporated into a city in 1649. 
While in Malden, George began selling his properties in the area.  He was intent on moving back to Casco Bay in Maine to stay.  He bought land in Casco Bay while selling land in the Charlestown area until 1664.  The family moved back to Casco Bay in 1667 onto a lot of 2000 acres George had his eye on.  After living there and improving the lot, they bought that lot for 60 pounds.  When all was finished, George finally owned 2300 acres of land in Maine in 1670.  George and Elizabeth’s kids were all grown and getting married, some settling in nearby.
This plan of resettlement in Casco Bay at North Yarmouth was foiled by two events—first, the outbreak of Indian wars and second, the theft of his lands in Casco Bay.  In 1675, George and his family fled from North Yarmouth when King Philips War broke out (during which the Indians killed their son George Jr.) The townsfolk returned, only to be driven from town again in 1678 when the Narragansett Indians came through North Yarmouth.  Peace was restored and George and Elizabeth and their extended family returned to begin again. 
In 1684, a developer named Walter Glendall claimed to own all of George Felt’s 2000 acres in Casco Bay.  He had purchased 100 acres from George a few years earlier and had moved to the area.  Glendall had bought more land, built a sawmill, became a leading citizen and a man of means.  He was appointed a trustee to lay out the new town.  Remembering George Felt’s 2000 acres, he laid out the new city within those borders by claiming a defect in the title.  He sold George’s land piecemeal among newcomers to the city at a profit. 
A historian wrote, “I cannot close this sketch without a passing notice of one of the most glaring bits of injustice ever perpetrated by the cupidity of men.  This was the course pursued by the new comers, by which the venerable George Felt was despoiled of the labors of a lifetime, and deprived of the large tract purchased by him.  Instead of his right to his 2,000 acres, a petty sop of a few small lots was finally, after long importunity, thrown to his hers, instead of their rightful inheritance.  But then one man was poor and old; the other was rich and influential [Walter Glendall.]”[1] 
In a petition for help in 1688, George begs the city of Mauldin for help in supporting him while he continued to fight this land grab.  In it, he testified, “Sometime after the late Indian War it was withheld from me by some of the inhabitants of the town of Casco Bay and being by the war much impoverished I could not recover it out of their hands.  I am now forced to suffer for want of convenient care taken of me in my present distress being about eighty and seven years old and very crazy and weak.”  George sold the last 300 acres of land he owned in Casco Bay to his son and grandson for something to live on. 
In an ironic twist, George and Elizabeth, once wealthy and respected, became the first citizens of the city of Mauldin to receive town aid, which they received until their deaths.  In another ironic twist, in 1688 the town of North Yarmouth was utterly destroyed by King William’s war.  The inhabitants or their heirs didn’t venture back to reclaim their lands for 25 years. 
George Felt set out for America as a young man to make a new life for himself.  As he established himself as a Mason and then as a husband and father, he began to realize his dream of success in the New World.  Acquiring land made him a wealthy man, which wealth he intended to pass on to his posterity.  Although he was unable to bequeath much land to his descendants due to the theft of his property, he still gave them a strong toe-hold in their new homeland and an honorable name.  It wasn’t what George intended, but good enough for his grateful heirs.
Sources:
Banks, Charles Edward.  The Winthrop Fleet of 1640; An account of the Vesselseake, Robert Fien English Homes from Original Authorities.
McCullough, Sylvia.  “Life History of George Felt (1601-1693) 1628-1693, Massachussetts and Maine” 10 June 2007, Ancestry.com.
Morris, John E.  The Felt Genealogy; A Record of the Descendants of George Felt of Casco Bay.  Hartford, Connecticut, 1893.
Noyes, Sybil; Charles Thornton Libby; Walter Goodwin Bates.  Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co, Inc.  1979, pp. 228-229.
Pope, Charles Henry.  The Pioneers of Massachusetts (1620-1650) 1900, p. 163.  Republished 1998 Genealogical Publishing Company. 



[1] Mr. Sargeant, as quoted in Felt  Genealogy.

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